[LINK] Some Friday Links

[rfmcdonald]

• Over at 'Aqoul, The Lounsbury argues that economic reform in Sryia, at least as described by a recent Financial Times article, is the sort of economic reform that will benefit only the elite.


• Daniel Drezner links to a poll that reveals Americans are remarkably shaky on the specifics of their religious faiths. I wonder: Is this really so rare?


• Edward Lucas points out that an American foreign policy hat first convinces various post-Communist states to beecome accessories to torture and then reveals this complicity to the wider world isn't th sort of foreign policy that builds lasting alliances.


• Far Outliers cites a book describing the onset of th Mau Mau revolt, particularly the extent of inter-Kikuyu violence.


• Gideon Rachmann calls for the world to intervene in Zimbabwe before it's too late.


• Joe. My. God lets us know that a California evangelical pastor is fasting for 40 days in order to try to mobilize support against gay marriage.


• Arnold Zwicky at Language Log writes about he many, many problems involved with using brain scans to come to sweeping concclusions about sexual orientation (or, by extension, any personal characteristic).


• Thanks to Noel Maurer, I got to see how President Bush complimented Filipinos (in front of the President of the Philippines) for being great cooks and workers--why, his own cook is Filipino!


• From Spacing, Sean Marshall writes about the many problems with the TTC's ugly, ugly subway maps, while Sean Micallef evokes Toronto's humid greenness in summer.